We wish it were true but, alas, there is no chemical that turns pool water blue if someone pees in it. At Mel Magazine, Mike Rampton investigates:
“Most pools are 20,000 gallons (91,000 liters) or more, so to make a few ounces of urine show up as a bright color would take some serious chemistry,” says bzsteele, a former pool supplies store employee, who recalls new pool owners asking about the dye. “There are cheap tests that could detect urine, but things like sweat, detergent and lotions would also be likely to spike them, so you’d be thrown off by all kinds of false positives. And once the reaction had happened, I’m not sure how you would undo it and get the pool back to stable.”
There’s also the fact that disinfection byproducts, or DBPs — created when the chlorine in pools reacts with the endless streams of pee released into them — are far more harmful than chlorine or urine would be on their own. Haloacetic acid, trihalomethane and chlorite can all be created by chlorine and organic matter (sweat as well as pee) reacting together, and can lead to respiratory issues, eye complaints, “lifeguard lung” and asthma. Adding more volatile chemicals, then, is unlikely to improve matters. And although pool disinfection techniques that require less chlorine (such as UV light, saltwater and hydroxyl-based systems) are increasingly being taken up by pool owners concerned about DBPs, a color-changing substance to stop people peeing in the pool is still nowhere in sight.
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Infinity London is a planned 220-meter skyscraper topped with a wild infinity pool that completely covers the roof. There's a new video explainer from the designer below, but let's quickly answer the obvious question of how one gets in and out of the pool.
“The solution is based on the door of a submarine, coupled with a rotating spiral staircase which rises from the pool floor when someone wants to get in or out – the absolute cutting edge of swimming pool and building design and a little bit James Bond to boot!" says designer Alex Kemsley.
The details of who will pay for the building and exactly where in London it'll be located "is yet to be confirmed."
From Compass Pools:
The pool is made from cast acrylic rather than glass, as this material transmits light at a similar wavelength to water so that the pool will look perfectly clear.
The floor of the pool is also transparent, allowing visitors to see the swimmers and sky above...
Other advanced technical features include a built-in anemometer to monitor the wind speed.
This is linked to a computer-controlled building management system to ensure the pool stays at the right temperature and water doesn’t get blown down to the streets below.
Boasting an innovative twist on renewable energy, the pool’s heating system will use waste energy from the air condition system for the building.
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A few weeks ago at Appleton, Wisconsin's Lawrence University, a group of experimental musicians, dancers, and performance artists staged "Breathe," a "multidisicplinary water opera" in the college's swimming pool. (The video above is from a previous performance at Middlebury College's Natatorium). From Fox Cities Magazine:
Lawrence University’s Margaret Sunghe Paek, professor of dance and curator of Dance Series, will work with music director Loren Dempster and director/choreographer Gabriel Forestieri to bring (the performance) to life...
“I wanted to see if I could make sound underwater,” Dempster says. “I experimented with microphones underwater, I bought a hydrophone, I [even] played the cello underwater.”
Dempster will be the only underwater musician in the entire opera as he will be in the shallow end, playing his cello while underwater microphones transmit the sounds above the surface.
Forestieri choreographed the opera, combining the practice of dance and free diving, called dancing in apnea, to create the water visuals.
“[I’m] taking cues from the space and the people in the space and how they relate to each other,” Forestieri says. “The choreography is a mix of [dancing] on deck, sometimes in the pool, partner dancing in the shallow end, and dancers floating with float belt.”
(via Weird Universe)
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Jerry and Marina Leussink of Sundre, Alberta didn't have a farm pond, so they build a custom pool-like pond lined with inch-thick plastic. Read the rest
A couple of days ago, the Dallas Zoo posted a video of Zolo the "breakdancing" gorilla spinning around in a kiddie pool. That was pretty great on its own. But then, video producer Bob Hagh added the song from Flashdance "Maniac" to it and broke the Internet. Read the rest
I know people who live in shipping containers, and a (great) record store in a shipping container, and now I see you can swim in a shipping container. Modpools modify shipping containers into modular and relocatable heated swimming pools. There are also models with dividers so you can turn one half into a hot tub. An 8 x 20' model is $26,000 which is in the same range as a basic in-ground pool. (via Digital Trends)
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On Tuesday, the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre's diving pool turned green. Yesterday, the water polo pool followed suit. Various reasons have been, er, floated, depending on who is doing the blaming, I mean explaining:
• It's a change in alkalinity, says Mario Andrada of the Rio 2016 local organizing committee. "We expect the color to be back to blue soon," he said. "...There is absolutely no risk to the athletes or anybody."
• No, actually heat and still air caused an algae bloom, according to the Olympic organizing committee.
• More likely, says FINA, the International Swimming Federation, is that the water tanks "ran out some of the chemicals used in the water treatment process."
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Edwin Charles Tobergta, of Hamilton, Ohio, has once again been arrested after making love to a pool float. Tobergta reportedly fled with his lover after being discovered in flagrante delicto by its owner. [Norwalk Reflector via Gawker] Read the rest
